12/22/2012

ARCHIE’S SUNDAY FINEST: CLASSIC NEWSPAPER STRIPS FROM THE 1940s and 1950s by Bob Montana (IDW)
This large format hardcover honors an era when Sunday comics were a weekly event, as well as the gorgeous brushwork of Archie’s first (and defining) cartoonist. The evolution of mid-century teenage culture is in evidence in these oft-hilarious strips (featuring a very va-va-voomy Betty and Veronica!).

12/03/2012

HITCHCOCKAnthony Hopkins slips into Lecterese a few times in this semi-apocryphal look at the relationship between Alfred Hitchcock and his wife / partner Alma Reville (a too-charming Helen Mirren) during the making of PSYCHO. As an acolyte of the director, I’d have preferred more filmmaking stories and less soap opera.

KEY & PEELE Season 2While the MADtv alums’ studio audience bridge segments can feel a bit forced, Keegan-Michael Key & Jordan Peele’s sketches are some of the funniest, best acted and most beautifully executed since the days of MR. SHOW. Hilarious, intelligent proof that race-based humor doesn’t have to be defensive or divisive.

RICHARD STARK’S PARKER: THE SCORE by Darwyn Cooke (IDW)
A small town heist goes horribly wrong in Cooke’s third PARKER adaptation, another gorgeous slice of retro noir, told in a masterful mix of words, line, lettering and color. The meticulous design sense of these books only adds esthetic gravitas to one of the best graphic novel series going.

SKYFALL007 comes almost full circle by the end of this third, mostly satisfying reboot entrant. An overlong, non-Bondian third act and some unforgivable main title kerning snafus only slightly tarnish this half-centennial celebration. Sorry, Sean, Daniel Craig now owns that Walther PPK in more ways than one.

...and don't call me CHIEF!

Bitten by a radioactive silverfish at the age of five, Karl Heitmueller Jr. (aka Kalli, aka Pops Gustav) gained the power of pop culture hyper-perception.
Now as an adult, he writes, draws and cartoons about comics, movies, television, music, Superman, advertising, design, politics, religion, drinking and jerks.
Sometimes all at once.